Romania
Bucovina, Transylvania, Montenia
In the land of natural beauty,
colorful buildings, and delicious sausages
I decided to take
a trip to the bordering country of Romania.
I didn’t really know what I would be seeing, but I figured an adventure
was in order. I foumd out that Romania is
such a treasure. Much developed and
westernized with natural beauty and its own character, Romania surprised me in
every place I went to.
First off, we decided to go on an adventure and cross the border on foot. We were the only ones doing it at the time, so we were not even sure if it was allowed. Luckily, we were greeted, by both Ukrainian and Romanian border patrols, with smiles and big Hellos. Everyone was friendly and helpful (definitely not like the US—Mexico border). The Romanian border patrol people asked where we were going, and we told them we were trying to head to Suceava to catch a train. They then went around asking all the cars in the customs line who was headed to Suceava and was able to take us 4 Americans with them. They let this van come to the front of the line, and in return, he would take us to Suceava… for free! And off we went! Simple as 1,2,3.
Rewind
to the night before: My friend Kristen
and I stayed at the TIU Chernivtsi hostel
for the night as we were then going to meet up with 2 other friends in
the morning. We told the hostel owner our
plans of taking an unmarked bus across the border because we were not going to
make the 1 official bus/day at 7:10am.
He sure gave us his opinion on that idea…. Got the idea in Kristen’s head
that we may very well get arrested for smuggling cigarettes or something crazy
like that. Well, glad we didn’t listen
to him because:
1.
We
didn’t get arrested
2.
We
got from Chernivtsi to Suceava in 2 hours time (that includes the border
crossing) in which is about 1 hour
faster than taking an official bus
3.
We
made friends with the Romanian border patrol
4.
We
got to add hitchhiking to our adventure
Once
we got to Suceava, we bought tickets to Cluj Napoca where we would then take
another train to Sighisoara which was our first main stop of the trip. On our journey, we got to spend a great 7
hours with 3 Romanian guys who were on their way to Holland for work (truck
drivers). They gave us a crash course
on Romanian culture and language and then we all had a grand feast on the
train. They definitely brought more to
the table than we did with ‘Mama’s boy’ having sausages, cakes, coffee, juice,
cookies, and a whole bunch of other goodies that his mother packed him. In Cluj we went our separate ways as they
hopped on a mini-bus to Slovakia and we on our train to Sighisoara. There is nothing better than exchanging
cultures on transportation. This was one of the highlights of the trip. They always say it is the journey to your
destination that is the greatest (or something like that), which was totally
true for this trip.
We had 3 stops on our trip: Sighisoara, Brasov, and Bucharest. Each place was magnificent in their own ways and it was such a treat to be able the check it out. To see some pictures, check out my other blog post about our itinerary/ what we did at Travel Adventures with MoRo.
The trip was fabulous. We ate like kings and queens, shopped till we dropped, met some wonderful and friendly Romanians, learned more about their culture, and enjoyed the journey. I definitely would love to go back during the spring/summer time when everything is green and bloomed. But even in the winter it was more mystical than I could have imagined. Like Kristen said, we were in "Harry Potter Land" .
Until Next Time,
Don't get arrested for smuggling cigarettes!
Mo
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